When things get complicated, it sometimes helps to do what the Legislature calls ‘dividing the question.’ That means taking a big battle and dividing it into smaller sub-battles. We believe such a process will bring clarity to St. Paul’s debate about a new way of voting called instant runoff voting, or IRV.

The St. Paul City Council has been presented with a petition that would put IRV on the election ballot in November. Voters would be asked whether to use this system in future city elections. The council is expected to take up the issue at its meeting Wednesday.

Here’s how we divide the question.

Is IRV a sound idea and a positive change? That is ultimately the most important question, but it need not be dealt with until it is placed on the ballot. We can set it aside until later.

Was a legal petition drive conducted according to the City Charter? The answer is yes, according to the county elections office; the will of the petition-signers is that the issue should go to the voters.

Does the City Council have the authority to defy that will and keep subjects of petition drives off the ballot? The answer is yes, but only if there is a very good reason. In 2005, the state Court of Appeals upheld a Minneapolis decision to keep a medical marijuana question off the ballot despite a successful petition drive. The court said medical marijuana was prohibited by state and federal laws.

Is IRV illegal or unconstitutional? We don’t know. The only Minnesota case dates back nearly a century and involves a different voting system. A constitutional challenge to the currently proposed system is pending in Minneapolis. The St. Paul City Attorney concluded that it is “more likely than not” that IRV will be found unconstitutional, prohibited by state law, or both.

Our dividing the question has gotten us to a narrower question: whether the St. Paul City Council, which has serious doubts about the constitutionality and legality of IRV but no certainty, should defy the will of the petitioners and keep the issue off the ballot.

Hang with us while we briefly explain what the heck we’re talking about.

Instant runoff voting differs from our current system in that voters not only select their preferred candidate, they also have the option of ranking the remaining candidates in the order of preference. If no single candidate wins a majority, the “instant runoff” begins. The last-place finisher is eliminated, and those votes are reallocated to the candidate picked second by Mr. Last Place’s voters.

The process continues until one candidate has a majority. In large fields, there could be several such eliminations and reallocations. Ideally, these calculations are performed automatically by voting machines. But with current machinery, all counts after the first would probably be performed by hand. In nonpartisan municipal elections such as St. Paul’s, IRV would eliminate primaries and, supporters say, focus more interest on general elections.

Back to our narrowly focused question.

When the City Council sits down next week, the members should not be guided by whether they think IRV is great or terrible. In fact, they have an inherent conflict of interest on the issue because most will seek re-election under whatever voting system St. Paul ends up with.

We have said city officials need to take a hard look at the legal difficulties of IRV. We do not want a sound-and-fury campaign on the issue only to find out that IRV is like medical marijuana — not within the city’s purview.

We also respect the rule of law, which argues that the wishes of petition-gatherers and signers should be honored if they meet formal standards. Why have a direct-to-voters process if it can be halted by city politicians?

If a court were to decide whether IRV is legal and constitutional, the council’s choice would be a no-brainer. That may be why a wait-and-see-if-it’s-constitutional approach is gaining steam, according to Pioneer Press city hall reporter Dave Orrick. Under this plan, the issue would go to voters if IRV is found to be constitutional.

Such a course would likely put the citywide vote back a year or two. But it would show respect for the City Charter and the petition process while also ensuring that voters are not presented with a “choice” they do not have the authority to make.

However, when it decides whether to defy a valid petition by a sufficient number of residents, the City Council must divide the question — a narrow slice for now, all the rest for later.

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